How to Draw Tracks in Dirt With Photoshop

Drawing tracks in dirt with Photoshop will use a few different tools, as well as a few different color tricks. Find out how to draw tracks in dirt with Photoshop with help from a well-versed web, graphic and illustrative designer in this free video clip.

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Video Transcript

Hi. My name is Alex Cecilio. I'm a graphic artist, and I'm going to show you how to draw tracks in dirt in Photoshop. So what I'm going to do is, first off, your picture is going to kind of look like this, so you're going to want to select a dark color, maybe like a dark brown, and just fill that in. And then go to your layers panel, and then down in the bottom on the right side next to the trashcan, there's a little sticky notepad-looking icon. It's to create a new layer, so click that, and there you've got your new layer. And now what you're going to do is select your paintbrush tool, and then, so, right now you've got... and you're actually going to want to select a slightly lighter brown, and right now this is what your paintbrush tool looks like. That's not what you want. So go to your brushes, click this button right here, and this is where you get your list of brushes. Go to wet media brushes, and it'll ask you if you want to append it or if you want it to be separate. It doesn't matter, but it would be wise to append it, just in case you need to go back. So this is going to give you the option of a whole bunch of cool different tools to use, as far as making dirt. And so you're going to want to make this brush really big, so that you can get a large pattern. And actually I'm going to choose this brush right here, because it will give you a kind of a dirt look. I'll just make it big. Even bigger. So you've got like 500. Even that's still not really good. So I'm going to go up and pick that one. And there you've got your dirt happening. So just draw, you know, your dirt however you want. And so what I'm going to draw for you today, as far as tracks in the dirt, I'm going to draw some dog prints in the dirt, because Photoshop has a shape that you can use, and that way you can have a little bit of knowledge on how to use shapes as well. So go to your shape tool, but instead of choosing your rectangle tool, you're actually going to go to the custom shape tool, and then this little window will open up, and that's what we want, but normally what you're going to get is this kind of panel. And sometimes this will be there and sometimes it won't. It all depends on your computer, and like the last thing you used, so just select all, and the way you do that is you click this little arrow, just like we do with the paintbrushes, and you can do 'All' and you can say 'OK', and then you've got prints. So I'm going to start by drawing. I'm going to actually make this the same shade as my background. And I'm just going to draw... and hold 'Shift', it'll make a perfect shape. It'll make your paw print shape. So then we can hold down option, and make sure, first of all, that your selection tool is selected, hold down option, and drag it, like that. And that way you can kind of move these guys around, and you can make more if you want. And that is how you create tracks in Photoshop. My name is Alex Cecilio. Thank you!